09 mai 2016

"Revoluţia Trump"

Good evening, everybody. It is an honor to be here at my last -- and perhaps the last -- White House Correspondents' Dinner. (Laughter and applause.) You all look great. The end of the Republic has never looked better. (Laughter and applause.)

Două articole devastatoare apărute la American Thinker:The candidates and the entire Republican establishment were perplexed and frustrated. “Oh and as I watched him on the stage, my hands were clenched in fists of rage.” They said #NeverTrump and promised to either vote for Hillary Clinton or sit out the presidential election entirely. The same party elites who told us to hold our noses and vote for McCain and Romney for the sake of “party unity” are now kicking sand and running home with all of their toys.Yet they blame Donald Trump for the demise of the Republican Party, not realizing that all Trump did was act as the coroner, examining the GOP corpse, declaring it dead, and signing the death certificate. The Republican Party elites are, “Them good ole boys drinking whiskey and rye, singin' this'll be the day that I die.” Not realizing that they died decades ago........Since the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term, the Republican Party hierarchy has subtly and at times overtly (the Tea Party) denigrated and deliberately diminished the influence of the conservative movement within their ranks. Despite the fact that conservatives are by far the largest faction within the party, this strategy has been successful, as there has been no one of the stature of Ronald Reagan to assume the mantle of both leader of the movement and the Party. Over the past 28 years, by manipulating the nominating process, controlling political contributions and colluding with the media, the party elites have made certain that no genuine conservative could win the presidency. Conservatives, as they have nowhere else to go, have been viewed solely as voting machine fodder to be harvested every two years.The Republican Party Died Long Before TrumpDonald Trump all but clinched the Republican Party nomination after his decisive win in Indiana. The post mortems have begun. Blame, recrimination, and threats, particularly from those who failed to secure the nomination for themselves or their favored candidate.The headline of the week has been the death of the Grand Old Party. The Atlantic proclaimed, “The Day the Republican Party Died.” Perhaps Don McLean can be plucked from the shelves of the Rock and Roll Museum, dusted off, and tasked with writing a new song. “The three men I admired most, Jeb, Ted, and Mitt, caught the last #NeverTrump train for the coast.” Mr. McLean can work on the rhyming bit.“RIP, GOP” wrote the Boston Globe. As did the NY Daily News, pronouncing the GOP dead in 2016. You get the idea. Did the Republican Party truly drop dead on the first Tuesday of May 2016? Or has the party suffered a long, terminal illness, sustained by extraordinary life support measures for the past few years, only to have Republican voters finally pull the plug during this election cycle?I contend that the Republican Party was diagnosed with a terminal disease way back in 1988, almost thirty years ago. One might argue that when Ronald Reagan, on his last day in office, boarded his “last train for the coast”, was the day the GOP’s “music died.”

Think of other chronic medical diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or cancer. The mind or body slowly fail, not typically in a linear fashion, but always in a long term unrelenting downward trajectory. There are improvements along the way, providing hope to those afflicted and their loved ones, but the hope is short lived, and the disease, despite a short pause, picks up where it left off.The first sign of illness post Reagan was George HW Bush, in his acceptance speech at the RNC convention, calling for “a kinder and gentler nation.” Kinder and gentler than what? Obviously a repudiation of Reagan’s brand of conservatism, which candidate Bush once called “voodoo economics.” Perhaps HW looked back on eight years of Reagan and said to himself, “Bad news on the doorstep, I couldn’t take one more step.”Next was George HW Bush’s famous pledge, “Read my lips. No new taxes.” Right out of the Republican Party playbook. Music to conservative ears. Cancer in remission. Until he turned his back on his pledge and raised taxes. Kicking the Republican Party in the teeth.This paved the way for eight years of Bill and Hillary Clinton. “While the king was looking down, the jester stole his thorny crown.” King George HW Bush looked down with contempt at the Republican base and Bubba the jester not only stole the crown, but used Bush’s “no new taxes” words agains him in the 1992 presidential campaign.The patient was not dead however. Signs of life appeared as Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America in 1994 infused the GOP with lifesaving doses of “accountability, responsibility, and opportunity.“ New life, GOP control of Congress, and hope that the demise of the Republican Party had been arrested.Enter a new era for the Republican Party in 2002 with George W Bush and his promise of “compassionate conservatism.” Just as with his father before him, more compassionate than what? Reagan’s conservatism? Newt’s Contract with America? Did this help or hurt the Republican Party?“I went down to the sacred store, where I'd heard the music years before. But the man there said the music wouldn't play.” Republicans heard the music of Reagan years before but Bush proclaimed the song was over. No conservative was George W Bush. Foolhardy and misguided military follies in the Middle East. Expansion of the federal education bureaucracy with Ted Kennedy via No Child Left Behind. Medicare Part D expansion increasing government control of healthcare. Promotion of open borders via amnesty. And a massive increase in government spending.Enough to make voters wonder whether President George W Bush was a Republican or a Democrat. Republican voters “sang dirges in the dark,” staying home in 2006, handing Congress back to the Democrats. Quite the legacy for Bush and another turn for the worse in the health of the GOP.In 2008, “a generation lost in space” saw the Republican Party on life support and voted for President Hope and Change. And change is what we got. But not for the better. In 2010 the GOP cancer went into remission, again in 2014, with two landslide midterm elections handing control of the House and Senate back to Republicans.Was this the road to recovery for the Republican Party or just a brief pause in the GOP death rattle? Republican voters asked their party “for some happy news, but she just smiled and turned away.” The GOP-controlled Congress turned abruptly from its campaign promises. Spending continues unabated. Obamacare and Planned Parenthood remain fully funded. The IRS remains unpunished. Executive amnesty proceeds according to Obama’s wishes. Iran got its nuke deal. Endless executive orders mocking the separation of powers. Everything playing out as if Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were still in charge.The EKG showed the Republican Party with a flat line, no pulse, no blood pressure, and no brain activity. “The day the music died.”Along came Donald Trump. Not a conservative. Not even a politician. But a pragmatist able to identify the disease killing the Republican Party, offering a brash, politically incorrect, yet popular set of solutions for injecting life back into the party. Sixteen other candidates, all extremely accomplished in their own right, methodically destroyed and removed from the nomination race. The media and the GOP elites unable to respond or stop the Trump train. “No angel born in Hell could break that Satan's spell.”The candidates and the entire Republican establishment were perplexed and frustrated. “Oh and as I watched him on the stage, my hands were clenched in fists of rage.” They said #NeverTrump and promised to either vote for Hillary Clinton or sit out the presidential election entirely. The same party elites who told us to hold our noses and vote for McCain and Romney for the sake of “party unity” are now kicking sand and running home with all of their toys.Yet they blame Donald Trump for the demise of the Republican Party, not realizing that all Trump did was act as the coroner, examining the GOP corpse, declaring it dead, and signing the death certificate. The Republican Party elites are, “Them good ole boys drinking whiskey and rye, singin' this'll be the day that I die.” Not realizing that they died decades ago.Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based retina surgeon, radio personality, and writer. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/the_republican_party_died_long_before_trump.htmlTrump, the Republican Party, and the Future of ConservatismThe Republican Party hierarchy commenced the current primary season with two overriding objectives 1) make certain no constitutional conservative would win the nomination; and 2) nominate someone considered to be an ideological moderate. They have succeeded in many ways far beyond what they could have imagined.The last conservative standing, Ted Cruz, was recently vanquished in Indiana. The presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, while certainly not the first choice of the party insiders, is more than just a moderate, he is the most liberal nominee in the party’s history. Nonetheless, as he has been a member of the Ruling Class for his entire adult life, Trump will eventually be acceptable to the party elites, as their first allegiance is to themselves and the Party. However, the far more important goal of denying the nomination to anyone in the conservative wing of the party was a resounding albeit a pyrrhic victory.Since the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term, the Republican Party hierarchy has subtly and at times overtly (the Tea Party) denigrated and deliberately diminished the influence of the conservative movement within their ranks. Despite the fact that conservatives are by far the largest faction within the party, this strategy has been successful, as there has been no one of the stature of Ronald Reagan to assume the mantle of both leader of the movement and the Party. Over the past 28 years, by manipulating the nominating process, controlling political contributions and colluding with the media, the party elites have made certain that no genuine conservative could win the presidency. Conservatives, as they have nowhere else to go, have been viewed solely as voting machine fodder to be harvested every two years.Among the ways the party hierarchy stacks the deck against any constitutional conservative winning the presidential nomination is by manipulating the primary process. The most insidious is by making certain, in the first three weeks of the process, that virtually all the states most favorable to a conservative candidate conduct open primaries (anyone can vote) and assign delegates on a proportional basis. As there are always a number of conservatives running, this strategy assures that no single conservative could come out with a significant lead, leaving the middle-of-the-road candidates to do well in the Midwest and Northeast which, not coincidentally, are states generally favorable to moderates and who allocate delegates on essentially winner take all formulas.The schedule for the three-week period between February 20th and March 15 of this year:

Open Primary

Proportional Delegates

South Carolina

X

Alabama

X

X

Arkansas

X

X

Georgia

X

X

Kentucky

X

X

Louisiana

X

X

Mississippi

X

X

North Carolina

X

X

Oklahoma

X

Tennessee

X

X

Texas

X

X

Virginia

X

X

Republican conservative presidential candidates are also the least able to tap into the significant reservoir of Republican deep pocket contributors, as these benefactors are incestuously in bed with the party elites. Invariably conservatives are underfunded and unable to compete in all the states on anywhere near an equal footing with the preferred candidates, thus placing them at a further disadvantage as they must rely overwhelmingly on grass roots donations.The conventional wisdom is that the media is biased against any Republican, the reality is that they are biased against conservative Republicans. This reality is highlighted during any presidential campaign season as the moderate candidates are assured of not only more coverage but much more positive coverage than any conservative, as the media, de facto members of the Ruling Class (as are the Republican Party elites), fear a constitutional conservative may actually rein in the runaway government upon which they all rely. This cabal includes Fox News and some self-proclaimed conservative websites and publications.In 2016, the largest field of candidates in the party’s history, combined with these previously successful tactics, produced results far beyond what the Establishment anticipated. This coalescing of circumstance and strategy eventuated in an unexpected beneficiary: Donald Trump. Thus he has, despite capturing just 42% of the all votes cast, won the Republican nomination.Based on his history and current stated positions on a myriad of issues, Donald Trump is not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination. He is the epitome of a Northeast Liberal. If he wins the general election, the Republican Party will become essentially what the Democratic Party of the 1990’s was under Bill Clinton. One that has fully embraced liberal social policies and the concept of bigger but more “efficient” government. There will effectively be one ruling party, as only marginal differences will exist between the Democrats and the Republicans. The conservative movement will be cast into the wilderness, marginalized and ignored by the Ruling Class, as there will be no vehicle, i.e. political party, in which they can hope to assume power or exert influence.If Trump loses in the general election, the recriminations and turmoil within the Republican Party will be volcanic. As the titular head of the party, Trump will lash out at everyone regardless of the long term impact on the party. The brunt of the blame and the scapegoat for the loss will be the conservative movement and its offshoot the Tea Party, as Trump and his allies will claim they were insufficiently enthusiastic about the party’s nominee and too insistent on the importance of social issues and the Constitution. The party elites and Trump will persist in marginalizing conservatism as being arcane, extreme and unworkable. Under the influence of Donald Trump, the Party, as it veers further to the left, will lose its mooring and begin a long slide into oblivion.Over the past three decades conservatives have been loyal to and have worked tirelessly within the Party, whether at the grass roots level turning out the vote for the mid-term election cycles or dutifully voting for moderate presidential candidates. However, regardless of whether Trump wins or loses in November, the 2016 primary season and the nomination of Donald Trump will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, as a vast number of conservatives are coming to the realization that it is time for the conservative movement to stop being the battered spouse. The heroic campaign of Ted Cruz against overwhelming odds and grotesque personal attacks is the last hurrah for conservatism within the Republican Party. Conservatism is not dead or dying. It is alive and well in the hearts of a vast plurality of men and women who know that constitutional conservatism can and will rescue this nation and place it again on a path of individual freedom, limited government and prosperity. But it has become painfully clear that it can only do so as a viable independent political entity. The oft expressed stratagem of working within the party to promote conservatism and assume leadership is no longer even remotely doable. The time has come to convene a meeting or convention of prominent conservative elected politicians, academics and pundits from around the country and begin the process of forming a new conservative party rather than rush headfirst into a suicidal third party candidacy to oppose Trump this November. A tactic that would cause the conservative movement to lose an enormous amount of credibility.The Republican Party, founded in 1854, had as its underlying foundation opposition to the two national parties on the issue of abolishing slavery. The Whig Party was ambivalent and the Democratic Party condoned slavery. Today a new party must be formed in opposition to the two national parties on the issue of a massive and oppressive central government. The Republican Party is ambivalent and the Democratic Party fully embraces statism. As the Republican Party, within a few short years, replaced a feckless Whig Party a new conservative party can replace a feckless Republican Party.http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/trump_the_republican_party_and_the_future_of_conservatism.html

It has come as no surprise that political gadfly and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol used Trump’s Indiana win to formalize what he has been threatening to do for the past year, in the event that Trump becomes the GOP’s presumptive nominee: start a third party “insurgency.”

In a Weekly Standard column entitled “Neither Clinton Nor Trump,” Neocon guru Kristol says “it was wrong to nominate Donald Trump.” “The good news,” he says, “is that it is not too late to give Republican voters, a majority of whom have not supported Donald Trump in the primaries, an alternative. An independent Republican candidate can help prevent the conflation of the Republican party with Trump and of conservatism with Trumpism. Such a candidate could also appeal to many independents and some Democrats. He or she could win.”

For the past year or so Kristol has been promoting a GOP presidential draft ticket featuring former Senators Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) or Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). The Washington Post reported last Friday that Kristol had met the previous day with Mitt Romney to discuss a third party run. According to Kristol, he is seeking Romney’s financial and political support for whichever candidate he is able to field, if Romney won’t make another run for the White House himself. While demuring on entering the race himself, Romney reportedly expressed his support for Kristol's effort.

Dump Trump for Hillary?

Mark Salter is not your everyday name to the average voter, but he is well known inside the D.C. Beltway, most notably as former chief of staff to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and as senior adviser to McCain’s failed 2008 presidential campaign. He’s gone further than most GOP establishment regulars in rejecting Donald Trump — going all the way to saying he’s backing Hillary Clinton. Following Trump’s Indiana victory, Salter adopted Clinton’s “I’m With Her” campaign slogan, tweeting: “the GOP is going to nominate for President a guy who reads the National Enquirer and thinks it's on the level. I'm with her.”

Of course, it's not difficult to make the argument that Mark Salter and other Beltway regulars of similar ilk have always been "with" Hillary — and with Teddy Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi — on many key issues. Salter's former boss, John McCain, has supported numerous Democrat Party/Big Government programs advocated by Clinton (most notably, perhaps, illegal alien amnesty and every other effort to assist the subversive open borders movement), so his “defection” to Hillary is no major shock.

However, Kansas billionaire Charles Koch, who boasts some of the GOP’s deepest pockets, has said “It’s possible” he may choose Clinton over Trump, if that’s the choice in November.

Never, Never, Never Trumpers

While some former anti-Trumpers have now endorsed him — Gov. Bobby Jindal, Dr. Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, for instance — a much longer list of establishment Republicans refuse to do so, with some adding very public denouncements of Trump. Most, though, have not yet revealed which of the above opposition options they will choose. Among the prominent GOP politicians who continue to oppose Trump are: Former Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, former Florida Governor (and presidential aspirant) Jeb Bush, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Arizona Senator John McCain, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, former New York Governor George Pataki, former Pennsylvania Governor and former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Citez din cel de-al doilea:"What the Trump campaign revealed, as Republicans and even Democrats moved toward him on trade, immigration and foreign policy, is that Bush Republicanism and neoconservatism not only suffered a decisive defeat, they had a sword run right through them."

Sa mai dau un citat, o alta expresie a exasperarii americanului:"It is curious that blacks, the least educated thirteen percent of the population, the least productive, most criminal, and most dependent on governmental charity, should dominate national politics. Yet they do. Virtually everything revolves around what blacks want, demand, do, or can’t do. Their power seems without limit."